Various Artists : The Rose and the Briar - Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad
Genre: American Balladry	Dates: Various

(Note: READ THE COMPANION BOOK available in the HHS Media Center)

You want to get edumacated about American folk music and culture—and actually have fun while doing so? You can do a whole lot worse than to check out both this CD and the collection of essays it serves as a companion to (available in the HHS Media Center), find a nice warm corner to curl up in, put on your headphones and thinking cap, and dig in. The book probes the title themes as they are addressed in American "folk songs" ranging from the hoary "Barbary Allen" to the relatively newborn "Nebraska" (written by Bruce Springsteen); the authors—among them such luminaries as essayist Sarah Vowell, novelist Joyce Carol Oates, underground cartoonist R. Crumb, and poet Paul Muldoon—serve as the readers' guides into the depths of each song…which are considerable. Vowell's piece, which traces the evolution of "John Brown's Body" into "Battle Hymn of the Republic," ought to be a required enrichment in American history classes.

Playlist:
1. Barbary Allen - Jean Ritchie
2. Pretty Polly - The Coon Creek Girls
3. Ommie Wise - G.B. Grayson
4. Little Maggie - Snakefarm (previously unreleased)
5. Frankie - Mississippi John Hurt
6. Deliah's Gone - Koerner, Ray & Glover
7. Wreck Of The Old 97' - John Mellencamp (previously unreleased)
8. Dead Man's Curve - Jan & Dean
9. Buddy Bolden's Blues ( I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say) - Jelly Roll Morton
10. Coo Coo Bird, The - Clarence Ashley
11. Volver Volver - Vicente Fernandez
12. Foggy Foggy Dew, The - Burl Ives
13. Black, Brown, & Beige Part IV (Come Sunday) - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
14. El Paso - Marty Robbins
15. Trial Of Mary Maguire - Bobby Patterson
16. Down From Dover - Dolly Parton
17. Sail Away - Randy Newman
18. Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts - Bob Dylan
19. Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
20. Blackwatertown - The Handsome Family (previously unreleased)